Frankly ... Berlin  Perfectly normal?

May traditionally starts in Berlin with left-wing rallies, some rioting and plenty of party spirit. After two years of pandemic, our columnist was looking forward to a good old May Day again. But what she found in and around Oranienstrasse took her quite by surprise.

It was the strangest – and most “normie” – May Day I’ve experienced in Kreuzberg in decades. Back in the 1990s, the triangle between Kottbusser Tor, Heinrichplatz and Mariannenplatz would morph into a battlefield for one night, with brutal riot cops on one side and socialist revolutionaries on the other (along with the obligatory testosterone-driven Sunday revolutionaries. It was an earnest and violent game of cat and mouse replete with barricades, stone-throwing, bottles flying and cars set on fire. 

In 2003, an alliance of local residents, businesses and citizens' initiatives launched Myfest to rein in the riots and occupy the streets with music, street food and, of course, politics. And it worked. Though the pandemic has put the event on ice for the past three years. 

But this year, even without Myfest, people took to the streets again on May Day – or at least tried to. At four in the afternoon, the U-Bahn was running normally, unlike in the pre-pandemic years when the neighbourhood stations were closed on May 1st in order to regulate pedestrian traffic more effectively. We got off at Kottbusser Tor, as usual, and made our way to our favourite late-night corner shop in O-Strasse (as locals affectionately call the legendary Oranienstrasse) to have a drink and get into a partying mood. But we didn't get that far: the police had already blocked off the street and told the crowd to go elsewhere. We didn't lose heart, though, and tried to reach O-Strasse by an alternate route. But everything was cordoned off there too. This time the police told us O-Strasse was already overcrowded and they wanted to stave off any potential trouble. Not even in the days before Myfest when things were much rowdier did the police dare to cordon off the neighbourhood like this.

O-Strasse deserted

For those who don't know Berlin yet, O-Strasse is the heart of Kreuzberg, and its clubs, bars and bookshops are essential to understanding the rebellious, alternative spirit that’s still at home in this hood despite its ongoing gentrification.

May Day afternoon is usually lots of fun in Kreuzberg: you always run into people you know in the street, there's always a rave going on somewhere, and every now and then some queer feminist friends in a hard-core band playing in the vicinity, driving everyone wild. But not this year. The only friend we ran into was Ipek, the resident DJ at SO36’s legendary Gayhane party and a former Myfest co-organizer. She was as forlorn as we were now, standing on the corner of O-Strasse and Manteuffelstrasse – which was closed too, of course. This was beginning to get on our nerves. 

We finally reached our destination via Oranienplatz, the only route still accessible, and were shocked by what we found. A street teeming with people? Surreal and incredible as it seemed, there was hardly a soul there in Oranienstrasse. Except the police lining the street, who’d never have dared to stand there so demonstratively in the past. Hardly anyone was selling street food or cocktails, there was no loud sound system to get people dancing, and many of the bars were closed. O-Strasse is normally livelier even on a weekday. 

Revolution is a daily struggle 

We moved on towards Mariannenplatz and caught a concert by a punk band to conclude the street party which Die Linke (The Left party) always hold there on May Day. Then we had a drink in a pub and went back to Oranienplatz for dinner. We wanted to get home before the “Revolutionary May Day Demo” procession arrived from Neukölln. This year, strangely enough, the banners spearheading the procession bore the slogan “INTIFADA IST UNSER KLASSENKAMPF” (Intifada is our class struggle). For my part, I think it’s a shame that they tolerate anti-Semitism, disguised as support for Palestine, at such a rally. A black bloc brought up the rear of the procession. Only one man among them was holding up a banner, which read “GEGEN JEDEN ANTISEMITISMUS” (Against all anti-Semitism). This protester seems to have been one of the few truly anti-fascist voices there. 

I’ll admit I’ve never been particularly partial to the Revolutionary May Day Demo. It’s perfectly legitimate, but unfortunately almost always starts or ends with violence and stone throwing, which attracts the notorious “riot tourists”. These – mostly male – rowdies hardly have a clue about left-wing ideology and are mostly there just for the adrenaline rush, for the cat-and-mouse game, to release some suppressed testosterone, prove their own toxic masculinity by protecting the mob and pose as brave revolutionaries – only to turn back into normies the next day. That aside, I think holding protests like this in Kreuzberg is a bit like preaching to the already converted. I always wonder what real, practical purpose these demonstrations serve and why they aren’t held in front of the Bundestag, where our future is actually decided. To my mind, revolution is a long, hard daily struggle that needs to be waged on 1 May as well as every other day of the year.

 

May 2022